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By default, Microsoft Excel spreadsheet cells measure 8.43 characters wide – in the program's default typeface and size – by 12.75 points, where one inch equals 72 points. You can resize cells manually by dragging their row and column headers, fit cells to the text they contain with Excel's autofit commands or assign specific dimensions numerically. As you size your spreadsheet to make it a better fit for your purposes and its contents, keep these methods and restrictions in mind to define how large and how small you can make your cells and how you can adjust their dimensions.

1. Set cell dimensions numerically. Within the Home tab on the Excel ribbon, click on the "Cells" group to open its drop-down menu and choose "Format." From the Cell Size options, choose "Row Height" or "Column Width," depending on which you want to set, and enter a numeric value in the Row Height or Column Width dialog box.

2. Set dimensions for one cell to assign dimensions for its entire row or column. Because all cells in a row must be the same height and all cells in a column the same width, you can establish size parameters based on one cell to apply them to a broader range of cells.

3. Set column width or row height to zero by entering a value of zero in the Row Height or Column Width dialog box. By doing so, you accomplish the same result you achieve by right-clicking on the row or column and choosing "Hide" from the drop-down menu.

4. Set any column width to a maximum width of 255, which will hold 255 characters in the default typeface and size. Set any row height to a maximum of 409 points, which represents just over 5.68 inches.

5. Double-click on any column or row header to narrow its width or height to the dimension necessary to reveal just its current contents. This accomplishes the same result as choosing either of the autofit options from the Cell Size menu.

Tips

To unhide any column whose width you've set to zero, click in the header of the column to its left and Shift-click in the column header to its right. Right-click on your selection and choose "Unhide" from the drop-down menu that opens up at your cursor. To unhide a row, select the row above and Shift-click to select the row below your hidden row, then right-click and choose "Unhide."

To unhide the first column in a spreadsheet, click in the Excel Name Box, type "A1" to navigate to the first cell in the hidden column, then open the Format menu and select "Unhide."

Instead of setting extremely wide columns to display long strings of text, go to the Home tab on the Excel ribbon, locate the Alignment group and click on the "Wrap Text" icon at the right end of the top row of icons.

Warning

Text that's too wide for a column width spills out into an adjacent empty column. However, as soon as you enter text into that column, the overset text from the previous column vanishes until you adjust its cell dimensions.

About the Author

Elizabeth Mott has been a writer since 1983. Mott has extensive experience writing advertising copy for everything from kitchen appliances and financial services to education and tourism. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English from Indiana State University.